


Strange How Certain the Journey

by gabolange



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 05:22:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16591622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabolange/pseuds/gabolange
Summary: "Don’t do that,” she says. “Don’t make light of this.”A bad day that could have been so much worse. Set eight months after "Family Portrait."





	Strange How Certain the Journey

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks as always to pellucid for beta reading. Any remaining errors are my own (except for double-hyphens in place of em-dashes, which are Google Docs' fault).

***

The phone call, this time, is from Alice. “Oh, Jean, hello. Yes, I’m calling from the hospital. Lucien has been shot.” Jean gasps and she feels her breath catch in her throat. It’s too familiar, that feeling of terror that causes her hands to clench and her pulse to race. Lucien. Again. It’s been just over a year since the stab wound that almost killed him. 

Alice had marveled-- _he saved his life with his pen, don’t you see_ \--but all Jean could see was the hole in Lucien’s flesh where he had been stitched back together, where one more second or one more centimeter stood between death and their life together.

It’s been thirteen months since then. Eight months of marriage. Now Jean knows, really knows, what she stands to lose. His hands at her waist as she makes breakfast, a kiss to the side of her neck, laughter against her hair. The wide world he has shown her, the intimate spaces she shares with him. Jean bites her lip and forces herself to speak over the rushing in her head, “Is he--.”

There is a commotion in the background on the call before Alice continues. She rattles off a litany of information: “It’s a flesh wound. Graze to the upper arm. It will require stitches, nothing more. In fact, I think they’re almost done. Oh, and Lucien would like a clean shirt.” 

Jean tries to keep up, but before she can say anything, Alice takes a breath and delivers an uncharacteristic reassurance. “Jean, Lucien will be fine.”

Jean brings her hand to her chest, pressing down to calm her pounding heart. She swallows and tries to keep her voice steady, easy, as if pretending to composure might quell her fear. After all, he’ll be fine this time. “I’ll be right there,” Jean says.

**

When she finds him, Lucien is sitting on an exam table, stripped to the waist and scowling. There is a heavy bandage across his left bicep and a nurse standing behind him with a vat of salve, saying, “Doctor, if you would just stop moving this would be much easier.”

Jean wants to reach out, reassure herself through more than sight, but the presence of the nurse stops her. Instead she says, “Alice didn’t tell me you hurt your back.”

Lucien rolls his eyes. “I tripped.”

Jean steps up to him, smiling tightly at the nurse. “Just a minute please,” Jean says, and the nurse vanishes behind a curtain, quickly enough that Jean can feel her relief at being rid of her churlish patient. He’s the wife’s problem now. “You tripped,” Jean repeats, reaching out to take his fingers between hers. They are warm and familiar, and he squeezes her hand.

Lucien scoffs. “David Bradshaw shot at me, and as I was running away, I fell into the briar patch on the property.” 

“Shot you, not shot at you,” Jean corrects, stepping around him to survey the damage. There across his back are a hundred tiny scratches, some dotted with blood, others merely welted and angry. He will fill in the details, she knows, but she can picture the scene well: Lucien was invited into the man’s house, asked to remove his hat and jacket and have a drink. The conversation turned to the crime--a girl found dead and mutilated at the property’s edge--and harsh words were exchanged. A pistol brandished in anger, followed by a hasty departure. A shot fired, maybe two, at the doctor’s retreating back. A hit, then an undignified tumble. 

Was Mr. Bradshaw a poor marksman or an effective messenger? Jean doesn’t like either option; just inches to the right and the bullet would have shattered Lucien’s ribs or punctured his lung or pierced his heart. He will be fine, but he might not have been, and he will never admit how close a call this was.

“Shot me,” Lucien agrees as Jean draws her fingers lightly over the bandage, trying to keep her hands from shaking. “Barely.”

Jean draws in a sharp breath. “Don’t do that,” she says. “Don’t make light of this.” She squeezes his shoulder above the wound and he winces at her touch or her words. “He could have killed you.”

She doesn’t know if she could be comforted now, not with tears rising in her throat and the image of Lucien shot in the back replaying through her mind like a stuck film reel. But she wants him to try, her husband who has so often quietened her stress with a touch or a word, who has brushed her cheek with gentle kisses and soft fingers at the whisper of hurt. 

But Lucien is not in a conciliatory mood, not after being injured and embarrassed and coddled. “It isn’t that bad, Jean,” he says. “I’ll be good as new in just a couple of days.”

“I know that,” she says, ignoring the note of hysteria crowding her voice. “But what about the next time and the time after that? One of these days, that phone call will not be to come collect you with a change of clothes.”

Lucien frowns, and in it she can see the fatigue and stress of the day. He’s in pain, she knows, and probably refused the offered analgesic in favor of a stiff drink at home. He should have taken it, should have had something to dull the hurt, because they both know he gets angry when he hurts. “Oh, you want me to stop doing this job, then,” he says. “Or do it Matthew’s way, following all the rules so no one ever solves a murder around here.”

“No,” Jean says. “This isn’t about that.”

Lucien reaches for the bag at her side, the one with the requested clothing. He pulls it from her grasp and slips the shirt over his head, grimacing as he does so. The fabric sticks to his back. He meets her eyes, his gaze flashing with frustration. “Isn’t it?” he says.

“Do the job however you like,” she snaps, exhausted by this conversation and his inability to see her fear. “Be as reckless as you like. Don’t think at all about anyone else. Is that right?”

Lucien recoils like she slapped him. Her words hang between them, as sharp and leaden as a bullet. Before she can say anything--an insincere “I didn’t mean that”--the nurse reappears through the curtain, a wary smile plastered on her face. “Well, I think we can get you checked out of here, Doctor, what do you say?”

** 

Jean climbs into bed late. Beside her, Lucien is sprawled naked on his stomach, sound asleep. She had sent him for a bath and a drink after an interminable dinner neither of them wanted, then had puttered around the house rather than force a conversation better kept for later. But now the pictures and the piano have been dusted, the biscuits for tomorrow’s lunches baked, the dropped stitch from yesterday’s knitting set to rights, and still Jean cannot shake the afternoon’s fight. 

She put on Lucien’s favorite nightgown, a sky blue satin negligee that rests low between her breasts and falls far above her knees. He had bought it for her in Rome with an intimate grin, and they discovered together how well he liked the feel of the fabric against his skin. Wearing it now, she isn’t trying for conciliation so much as emphasis: see what you have here with me? Don’t throw it away. 

But of course he isn’t awake to see it. 

How rare it is for Lucien to be still beside her. He is always moving, fingers tapping against his whiskey glass, eyes darting as he tries to solve yet another mystery. His energy now is less frenetic than in the early days of their acquaintance and she knows his quietude stems from contentment. But even so, he rarely sleeps soundly or long, caught up in his puzzles or the nightmares even her kisses cannot stop.

She watches him sleep, the rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathes. The hair at the nape of his neck is curling from the bathwater and want of a trim, and Jean reaches to stroke it. It is one of Lucien’s favorite things, her hands in his hair, her fingers curling in his beard, and she smiles to see this is as true in sleep as it is waking; he sighs and relaxes more into his pillow as she buries her fingers in the short strands at the base of his neck. 

She traces her fingers down his neck, replaying their argument. She is right: he is reckless. Some days she loves him for it, and for that wicked grin he flashes when he solves a problem and races off to save the day. Today, she hates him for it, but he is right: he is better than anyone else at what he does.

Her eyes come to rest on his back. The cuts are bright even in the darkness of their bedroom, scattered across the ropey scars that cover him from shoulder blade to tailbone. She wonders what the nurse thought looking at him today; was she old enough to know the stories of what happened in the camps, at the front, to all the men Lucien’s age, now so many years ago?

Jean kisses his shoulder, unblemished, pressing her lips and then her cheek against his skin. “I love you,” she whispers, then shifts her hand across his back, gently so not to disturb his weeping injuries. She trails a finger over his scars. That one, for fighting for his men to have larger rations. That one, for talking back to the prison guard. That one, for insisting on medical treatment for one of the boys.

All of them, for daring to live. 

He has always come out ahead before. Why is she so scared now? God and fate could not be so unkind as to fell him with a farmer’s bullet in a Ballarat field, not after Changi and everything else. Could they?

Today, she thought they might. 

Jean traces a winding path down his back with her hands, smiling when she reaches the rise of his buttocks. They have spent enough time in this bed and others that she is not shy about touching him like this, but not so much that it doesn’t make her heart rush as she does. She would never have imagined carrying on like a newlywed at fifty, but they do, at least on those days that are not interrupted by bullets and brambles. 

Lucien mumbles something into the pillow.

“What was that?” she asks.

He turns his head, eyes still closed. “Don’t stop.”

“Mmm,” she says by way of acknowledgement, and rests her hand gently at the base of his spine before leaning forward to place a kiss on a narrow piece of healthy skin between his shoulder blades. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she says.

Lucien is barely awake but he coughs at that, and Jean doesn’t know if she is meant to understand that he knows she won’t, or that she already has, just in a different way. She curls her fingers over the small of his back, running her nails across the skin there, and he shivers. She repeats the motion, not a scratch, not a tickle, just soft pressure back and forth across his hip and onto his arse. 

He didn’t catch any briars here--lucky, that--and so she deepens the pressure slowly until she is kneading the muscles there. She likens the motion to forming dough, the push and pull with her hands, the occasional pinch, only this never fails to leave Lucien pliant and wanting. Soon he lifts his hips to settle his erection more comfortably beneath him. 

The thrust of his hips against the bed encourages her--he is well enough for this, whatever it is to be--and Jean lets herself lean forward, dipping her tongue into the hollow of his back. She follows the route of her hands with her mouth, tasting his soap and the sweat that is beginning to form as his arousal builds. She licks it away from his tailbone and he groans.

This, the way he gives himself over under her touch, the way he breathes her name as his eyelashes flutter, these are just a few of the things she cannot imagine living without. The quirk of his lip over a teacup, too; the chaste way he holds her when they dance to the wireless, a fond reminiscence of earlier, harder days. 

If her hands on his body are an apology for her anger, they are also an insistent reminder: put me first, as I put you first. We do this and everything else together. 

She trails her fingers from his arse down between his legs, cupping his testicles from behind. She fondles them gently, rolling them in her palm, and he grinds his hips into the bed. “Jean,” he says, face still resting against the pillow. Perhaps this is just a pleasant dream for him--but it won’t be if he comes on the sheets and she has to rouse him for laundry.

With another gentle squeeze to his balls she shifts away and pushes lightly at his shoulder. “This way,” she says, settling him on his right side, leaving his injured arm and back exposed to the spring night air. 

He reaches his free arm to hold her as she adjusts her position, so they lie face to face on their sides. His hand rests on her belly and he smiles. “I like this,” he says, fingering the satin of her negligee. 

Jean leans forward to kiss him for the first time since she learned he had been shot. She presses her lips against his, a little insistent, not minding that their teeth bump as she seeks out his tongue with hers. Sleep and whiskey, the two flavors that will always make her think of Lucien like this, late at night with his hardness pressing into her stomach and his fingers fluttering across her side.

“I know,” she says, and shuffles closer, letting him feel the fabric against his body, letting her take in the solid weight of him beside her. He thrusts against her, and she can tell he is too close to slow down now. She is wet from the taste of him but nowhere near ready, and so will have her turn later, when he is more alert and can take the time with her that she has with him. Jean kisses him again and pulls the negligee over her head.

She holds the satin between them, draping it across his erection. “You like this, too?” she asks.

“Yes,” Lucien says, and Jean kisses his chest. After that, it is her hands and his breath, both working faster as he builds toward his release. Jean runs her fingers over the head of his erection, then closes her hand tightly around him. She twists her wrist as she pumps him, letting the satin swirl across him, and he groans. Her other hand she returns to his testicles, holding them in her palm beneath the soft fabric as she runs her fingers across the back, pressing her middle finger into the tight skin behind his balls.

She likes the feel of the satin too, those moments when he fondles her breasts beneath it or rubs it between her legs. Everything becomes slippery, softer and warmer all at once. She doesn’t know how better to tell him that her anger comes from love than to give him this feeling. 

Lucien shudders now with the tension as she flexes her wrist up and down. “I’ve got you,” she says, because he is at her mercy but safe in her hands. She shifts away slightly because likes to watch him come: his vulnerability always leaves her wanting, this private piece of him that no one else will ever see. His whole body contracts in a spasm and then releases, stress and relaxation bound together in a moment that belongs to her alone.

He spills himself into the satin and Jean slows her movements until her touch is the gentlest caress. She presses her legs together to quell her own arousal--already Lucien is shifting forward, well on his way to sleep--and tosses the negligee to the floor. 

She shifts so they are spooned together, his injured arm draped over her waist. He brings his arms to hold her close and breathes deeply, dozing. Jean lets herself enjoy the weight of him behind her, his breath at her ear, the rise and fall of his chest, each a promise that he is alive. There have been too many close calls, but today luck prevailed and kept him here with her. Somehow.

Jean closes her eyes and Lucien shifts. “Will that wash?” he mumbles.

“What?” she asks. She is starting to drift herself, letting the warmth of his body lull her to sleep.

“Don’t want to ruin your nightgown,” Lucien says and she chokes a laugh as she catches up to what he’s saying. 

“You can buy me another one, darling,” she says. Another trip to Rome, or perhaps just a day in Melbourne to replace a beloved thing. If only he could heal as quickly, if only their angry words could be so well forgotten.

“All right,” Lucien says, and then he is fast asleep.

**

She wakes to the full dark of night and his hands on her breasts, knuckles and fingertips stroking the skin. His touch lacks intent, as if Lucien would be content to stay like this, sleepy and warm in the cocoon of their bed. But as she comes awake, Jean finds herself squirming, pressing her breast into his hand and her hip into his groin. His light caress isn’t enough, not for all the tension of the day, not for the arousal that flares hot and fast in her belly.

She breaks his embrace and turns to face him, pressing her mouth firmly against his. There, that’s what she wants, his beard rough against her lips and chin as he returns her kiss, his fingers winding tightly in her hair. She curls her hands over his ears and behind his head, holding him to her, opening her mouth to his seeking tongue. 

Tonight, she thinks she might kiss him forever. Yes, she wants his hands on her skin, wants him buried deep between her legs, but mostly wants to kiss him until they are left gasping. She remembers the first time she kissed him, on a park bench in Adelaide, sweet and quiet for the newly courting couple. She cherishes that memory and the sheepish smile that blossomed across Lucien’s face, but more she remembers the next day, when a goodnight kiss turned into something far more dangerous. 

Then, as now, she sucked on his upper lip, worrying the coarse hairs with her teeth. Now, as then, he responds by fondling her lower lip with his tongue, encouraging her to release her grasp so he might have his turn. They had stood just outside the lamplight beside Christopher’s little house, his body pressed against hers, his hands on her face as she began to learn what it would mean to be with him. 

That night, he had been careful not to cross too many lines, but now he brings one hand to her breast and squeezes. He pinches her nipple and she arches her back, breaking the kiss. “Is that what you want?” he asks, rolling her nipple between his fingers, so tightly she gasps. He repeats the movement; he knows what she likes.

She leans up to kiss him again, pulling him down closer, insisting he open his mouth to her. He presses her deep into the pillow, pressure and warmth, giving her what she is asking for. Which is what? His weight, his touch, his presence? She could guide him with her mouth and her hands, but it isn’t the sex that is making her desperate.

She gentles the kiss and rests back on the pillow. “You scared me today, Lucien,” she says, stroking the top of his ear. She opens her legs so he rests between them, a prelude to later, and she wriggles as his burgeoning erection settles against her stomach. “I don’t want to wake up one day and not have you here with me.”

He looks down at her, still not understanding. “It isn’t that bad, Jean,” he says again. “The briars were worse than the gunshot.” She pinches his ear. 

“What about next time?” she says, shifting to touch the scar on his abdomen. It is still puckered; he tore the stitches one too many times for it to heal smoothly. She knows he can’t sit still, would never ask it of him, not really; she would hardly have fallen in love with him if he sat home and commented blandly on the cricket. But that moment of fear-- _Lucien has been shot_ \--lingers nonetheless. 

He opens his mouth as if to say, “There won’t be a next time,” but she raises her eyebrows and he presses his lips into a line. Watching Lucien think is a favorite pastime; late at night, she will stand at the doorway of his office, head nodded against the frame, waiting for the breakthrough moment or the one when he decides his problem is better left for tomorrow. That he shares this with her has always felt like a gift, but right now she wishes he didn’t have to think so hard about what to say in this moment. 

“I don’t want you to give up the job,” she says, still stroking his scar. “I just--.”

His leans forward and kisses her. It is a sweet kiss, just a touch of his lips to hers. “I didn’t think he was going to shoot me,” Lucien grumbles. “I thought he was going to cry and give up.”

Jean snorts at that. “Was he the killer, at least?” she asks. Somehow in all the ruckus she never found out.

Lucien smiles, and some small piece of their equilibrium is restored by her question. He kisses her cheek. “Yes,” he says. “Matthew got a full confession.”

She reaches to cradle his cheek in her palm. “Murder, then attempted murder,” Jean says softly. It would be easy to be caustic, but a little girl died, and then the man who killed her shot Lucien. That he missed his target wide was only luck. 

Lucien turns his head to kiss her hand, then looks down at her with newly quiet eyes. “Attempted murder,” he repeats, as if saying it makes it more real than the wound on his arm. He shifts his weight and Jean can feel that his arousal has waned. Despite this diversion, she still wants him, still wants the reassurance his body can provide that his words never can.

“Yes,” Jean says, hitching her leg over his. “That’s what it was.”

He nods and smiles tightly, stroking his hand over her hair. Perhaps if she was in a different mood, he might shrug and say, “Hazard of the job,” because it is. Or he might say that safety is an illusion--that little girl buried in the farmyard had not courted danger. Jean watches these thoughts, or ones like them, flit across Lucien’s beautiful face as he considers and discards them. 

Finally he says, “You know I will always do everything in my power to come back to you.” 

Jean remembers Alice’s wonder-- _he saved his life with his pen_ \--and thinks of the scars on his back. For so long he has been fighting for his life, for so long he fought for this marriage. Keep fighting, she thinks. Go out into the world and then come back to me.

“I know,” Jean says. She twists her fingers in his hair. “I know that.”

There is nothing more to say, and so he leans down and kisses her. She can tell he’s willing to let her decide where they go from here--does she want her reassurance soft and gentle or hard and wanton? 

She sucks on his lip because it doesn’t matter, not really. She wants to wrap herself around him, to find as many ways as she can to touch him, wishes she could splay her hands across his back and pull him down and take his weight. She wants the friction of his fingers on her breast, the warmth of his thighs between hers--. 

“Lucien,” she says and arches her back, requesting with her body what she cannot with her hands. She presses herself against him, aching for the pinch of his hip against hers, his erection brushing against her warmth. 

Now it is his turn to say, “I’ve got you,” and he tilts her head back to suck on her pulse point, pressing tongue against the sensitive skin. With his other hand he pulls on her nipple, that sharp feeling she always likes. She might like his teeth there instead of his hands, but he would have to break their embrace, and that won’t do. She wraps her legs around him instead, digging her heels into the back of his thighs.

Closer, anything to be closer, to feel him alive against her. To feel alive with him.

He rubs his hips against hers, both to encourage his own arousal and to build her own. Now his length is nestled comfortably between her legs, and they rock together, her growing wetness coating his shaft. It isn’t enough yet, but Lucien grows noticeably harder. “I thought this was for you,” he says, taking her face in his hand. 

“So kiss me,” she says, and he does, pressing his nose against hers and sucking on her tongue. She cannot grab for his back so she wraps a hand around the back of his head and holds him there. She sucks and tastes until with his other hand he pinches her nipple again and she gasps. 

He does it again, pulling and twisting, then grasps her breast, digging his short nails into the flesh. Hard and wanton was the answer, she thinks, as she presses her free hand into her other breast, mirroring his actions. Her own nails are sharper than his, but she can barely tell the difference except for the pull in her wrist as they both work at her breasts. He hasn’t stopped kissing her, teeth scraping against her lip and her chin.

She wants him, the ache in her breasts and her clit tells her that, but she wants more of this first, this delicious build up. But her body starts to run away from her and she thrusts her hips more firmly against him, widening her legs as if to invite him in. 

“Patience,” Lucien says, and she tries to slow down, to recover her breathing. Her body must be holding on to the memory of fear, because she can’t quite make herself cooperate--this is fight and flight both. Her hips thrust again, his erection brushing fully against her. 

“Lucien,” she says, breathy.

“Shh,” he says and lifts himself off her an inch. She whines and he kisses her to quiet her. “I love you,” he says. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

But his hand--the hand that was on her face has snaked its way between their bodies, fingers finding her clit. He presses down and she grinds herself into his hand, bucking fast against his touch. His fingers get slippery quickly; she is soaking with need now, hips seeking something that isn’t there, her hands grasping at her breast, at his hair. “Lucien,” she says again, moaning with want.

This doesn’t usually happen this quickly. Usually he can take his time with her, tasting and touching, a pleasure they both enjoy. Today, today, she knew she was stressed, but had no idea this would be so fast, so good. “Please, Lucien,” she says, and she isn’t sure if she wants him to pinch her breast or kiss her mouth or sheathe himself deeply within her--all at once and then some. “Please.”

He looks down at her with bright eyes. She has paid no attention to what he wants, not this time, but it doesn’t seem to matter--she knows that gaze, and if his need is not as frantic as hers that makes it no less urgent. And there he is, thrusting inside her hard.

Lucien withdraws almost entirely so he can push himself back in, erection pressing on her inside walls. That spot--. She pulls back when he does so when she raises her hips to meet him the friction spikes and her hips protest. She wants to wrap her legs around him but her thighs quiver with effort, so she plants her feet and arches her back as she thrusts her hips. Again and again, in and out, their hands pressing against her breast in time, his pelvic bone colliding with her clit.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, oh,” and she is tossing her head and has lost their rhythm and still there is Lucien, deep inside her, here with her, always, always. She comes with a gasp, her whole body shaking as the pleasure crashes over her. 

It takes Lucien another moment to finish, and she enjoys the feeling of his final thrusts as she slowly comes back to earth. He kisses her again, gently this time, and pulls slowly away from her body as if he worries she might not let him go. She scratches her fingers through his beard and smiles, but drops her hands and legs to the mattress.

She is hazy and warm now, the thoughts that have crowded her mind for the last hours finally quiet. Beside her, she hears Lucien catching his breath, and she lets her heart slow with his. She should clean up, but already she can feel herself curling toward him, sleep creeping in. It has been a long day. 

“Here you go,” Lucien says, and Jean blinks open her eyes. He’s holding the satin negligee out, proffering a clean spot. He gently rubs it between her legs, wiping away the worst of the mess. It is soft and she mewls, fighting the tug of sleep and new arousal. 

He drops the nightgown back to the floor strokes her hair, soothing her into sleep. Maybe they will take that trip to Melbourne this weekend. Maybe a quiet Christmas in Ballarat will calm her fearful heart. Maybe all she needs is Lucien, warm beside her in the dark of night.

“I will always come back to you,” Lucien whispers, holding her close. As Jean drifts off, she lets them both believe it.

***


End file.
